Towards a Values Based Monitoring and Evaluation of Gender Responsive Public Procurement Programs in Kenya

Abstract

Gender responsive public procurement in Kenya is an ambitious promise that has yet to be met because the monitoring system currently employs a compliance-oriented approach instead of transformative one. Current indicators follow numerical outcomes such as the proportion of contracts given but cannot record whether such opportunities actually empower women or whether such opportunities will change the structural economic inequalities. This conceptual study addresses this critical vacuum by introducing a radical paradigm shift to the comprehensive values-based monitoring and evaluation system. We go beyond merely enumerating contracts granted to women owned businesses to construct a novel paradigm that builds out on feminist economics and institutional theory. This model aims to gauge deep and frequently neglected aspects of success like the expansion of actual economic independence, the systemic breaking down of structural impediments, and the attainment of the wider social change within societies. The analysis reveals a notable accountability void in which the current emphasis on participation rates utterly ignores the actual real world effects on women and the sustainability of their businesses. The suggested framework is a direct challenge to the policymakers and practitioners who are being called to bear a new meaning of evaluation as the provision of procedural compliance rather than improvement of substantive and equitable outcomes. Such fundamental reorientation requires operationalization of core values into specific indicators and including them into the current Kenyan system of public financial management. This shift is ultimately vital to the active reorganization of the procurement programs in the country, in order to turn into a real driver of gender justice and inclusive development.